To get the ball rolling in this discussion folder, here's a link to an essay I wrote while creating Paths to Wholeness that summarizes resilience-enhancing strategies I've used, both personally and professionally. This is the "uncut" version of the essay that I included in the book. It begins:
Along with perseverance and a sense of purpose, an essential capacity for successfully traversing the Hero’s Journey that describes our lives is resilience.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back. In a physical object, it is elasticity: the property a material has to return to its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed. In an ecosystem, it is the system’s capacity to withstand shocks and to rebuild itself when disturbed. In a person, it is recovering quickly from adversity.
Resilience is what lets us rebound from failure and come back from heartbreak, illness, financial disaster, and tragedy. Those who lack resilience are overcome by obstacles and tend to give up in the face of hardship. Resilient people may feel the pain of defeat, but they don’t let it keep them down.
Resilience in materials is intrinsic, but in people it is a dynamic quality. Like a muscle, it can be damaged by stressors greater than the “system� can withstand and it can atrophy if neglected. But it can also be strengthened by exercise.
Here's a link to the complete essay, including the images:
Along with perseverance and a sense of purpose, an essential capacity for successfully traversing the Hero’s Journey that describes our lives is resilience.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back. In a physical object, it is elasticity: the property a material has to return to its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed. In an ecosystem, it is the system’s capacity to withstand shocks and to rebuild itself when disturbed. In a person, it is recovering quickly from adversity.
Resilience is what lets us rebound from failure and come back from heartbreak, illness, financial disaster, and tragedy. Those who lack resilience are overcome by obstacles and tend to give up in the face of hardship. Resilient people may feel the pain of defeat, but they don’t let it keep them down.
Resilience in materials is intrinsic, but in people it is a dynamic quality. Like a muscle, it can be damaged by stressors greater than the “system� can withstand and it can atrophy if neglected. But it can also be strengthened by exercise.
Here's a link to the complete essay, including the images:
Copyright 2017, David J. Bookbinder